


i've opened my body, it's hollow inside

by warriorqueenclarke



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Eating Disorders, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Smut, also some cheating. oops, sad sex :(
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-29
Updated: 2018-06-17
Packaged: 2019-05-15 13:15:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,406
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14791184
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/warriorqueenclarke/pseuds/warriorqueenclarke
Summary: Jake dies and Clarke disintegrates.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> ahahhahaha another multichap when i haven't worked on my last one in over a year? seems like a Capital Idea! anyway. don't get too attached sorry we'll just have to see where this goes but i'm in the mood for sadness and bad coping mechanisms !!!

Clarke is drunk.

Well. Not _drunk_ drunk, but the alcohol has definitely gone straight to her head. It’s her first drink of the year. The year that was supposed to be completely dry, but, well – things change, parents die, alcohol becomes necessary. It’s not helped by her empty stomach, but food tastes like ash even when she’s not too tied up in knots to force anything down her throat. This is grief, apparently. It blows.

“You okay?” Bellamy asks, and she wants to hate him for it. She’s tired of that _fucking_ question, and she tells him so. “I meant… you’re not gonna be sick or anything?”

She shakes her head. He’s had as many as her, but he has the upperhand tolerance-wise. He’s stocky, stronger than he was last time she saw him. And he’s probably eaten a regular amount of food today, because he’s a normal human man not dealing with death at present.

“This is the first time I’ve felt anything since it happened,” she says. She’s definitely a bit drunk, because she wouldn’t be admitting that otherwise. Not to him. “I’m willing to risk having too much.” She stops, can’t bring herself to look at him. “You don’t have to stay if you don’t want to.”

He orders whiskey and water and gives her the latter.

“That’s just greedy,” she says. “Out of the mouths of… is there a word like widows for daughters?”

“Don’t think so,” he says, after a contemplative pause.

“Anyway. Out of the mouths of those.”

“Sorry,” he says. “But I think it’d be shitty of me to let you get blackout drunk right now.”

“I’ll just do it myself later,” she says. “But at least your conscience gets to be clear.”

He looks at her. He’s looking at her a lot, ever since he found her in the alley outside the wake three hours ago and she told him, frantically, that she needed to get the fuck out of there. The small part of her brain with any feeling left wants it to be about something other than the funeral. Wants to be wanted. Desired. Anything but pitied.

“How’s Echo?” she asks. The question flies out from her out of nowhere. It’s almost like a challenge.

He grimaces. The small part of her brain giggles.

“I don’t know,” he says. “She’s fine. Things are a bit tense.”

“Sorry,” she says. She’s not. Obviously. She can admit that to herself when she’s drunk. “That sucks.”

“Yeah, well, it’s hard to feel sorry for myself when we’ve just come from your dad’s funeral,” he says. This is why she likes him. He’s using the words. He’s not saying ‘your loss’, ‘pass away’, any of those bullshit words people use to try to lighten the blow as if phrasing really matters when the remains of your father had to be scraped off the highway.

“And yet you’re still managing,” she teases. Feels good to flirt. “Your narcissism is admirable.”

“That’s too many syllables for how many drinks you’ve had,” he says. Still looking at her. “Don’t hit me for asking. But do you want to talk about any of it?”

“Do you really think I would be with _you_ if I wanted to talk about it?” she says, which is not particularly fair. Whatever. Dead dad pass.

He shrugs, seemingly unphased. “I’m not close to the situation. Sometimes that’s good.”

Clarke sighs.

“It’s – everything was always orchestrated. Every aspect of how we lived had to be choreographed, so my mother didn’t look bad. And I know it’s – I was lucky. I am lucky. But now I have to listen to all these people who knew fuck-all about my dad outside of his fake, public persona come up to me and tell me how inspiring he was. And he was, but they wouldn’t know that. And even in death, we’re all relegated to being just… things, things that serve my mother’s political purpose. None of us are people. Me especially. And I can’t tell anybody anything about who he really was, about who I am. And he's still fucking dead.”

The sounds of the shitty sports bar they’ve found themselves in are deafening for a second. Roaring from the television – football, maybe basketball. Glasses clink together. Her head swims and then Bellamy comes back into focus. His face is twisted and carved by sadness.

“This is why I don’t want to talk to anybody,” she says. “You all look at me like that. And all I feel is just… anger or nothing.”

“I understand,” he says. “Not… not everything, obviously. But I understand death. And the nothingness.” The words come from him painfully, slowly, tugging glass from a deep-set wound. Of course – Aurora, how could she forget.

“I’m already tired of it,” she says. “Drinking helps. I’d forgotten. But I think it’d be pretty stupid to become an alcoholic because my dad got killed by a drunk driver. Dramatic irony. No thanks. This isn’t fucking Hamlet.” A beat. “Hey, do you want to hear something fucked up?”

“Always,” he says.

“Part of me is annoyed because… I was doing really well. I had gotten out of that world, I was feeling really great. And now there’s… this. And I have to deal with it, and I’m back on everybody’s radar, even more so. I hate it.”

“I would be pissed, too,” he says. “It’s hard to say that to people. When mom died, it was mostly just… an inconvenience. She had checked out years ago, she wasn’t present. She was basically already dead. But now we had to pay for the funeral and the service and I had to miss work. And I can’t even say that sentence to… anyone, really. Because it’s such a shitty thing to care about when a person’s life has just ended.”

“I would care,” she says. “That sounds annoying. And I’m allowed to say that, so. Live vicariously through my grief pass.”

“What are you gonna do with yours?” he asks. “Your grief pass. I didn’t really have time to use mine.”

“I don’t know,” she says. “I feel like I’m probably going to do some stupid shit, but I haven’t decided what yet.”

They’re looking right at each other, the kind of no-break eye contact that’s loaded and really only possible to sustain when you’re drunk.

“Let me know when you do,” he says. “I wanna see it.”

She laughs. It’s the first time since. It feels strange in her throat. Good-strange. Her phone buzzes on the table – it’s been doing that periodically – and she dares to check it. She has a couple texts from various people, some she’d expect, some she wouldn’t.

“I need to decide what I’m doing,” she says. Bellamy raises a questioning eyebrow. “So I can tell people. So they won’t worry. I don’t know if I’m gonna sleep at home or not.”

“Is your mom staying there?” he asks.

“No, at a hotel,” she says. “But I don’t want to go back to my apartment. When bad things happen, I get weird about my bed. I slept on the couch for like a month senior year after I-” and then she has the sense to stop. Not tonight. One thing at a time. Especially with Bellamy fucking Blake.

He lets her trail off, doesn’t prompt her to continue. Maybe he knows. Maybe Octavia told him. Maybe he’s guessed, or maybe he just senses it’s not the time. Either way she’s appreciative.

“If you need a place to stay, Miller’s couch pulls out,” he says. She considers the thought, allows it to sit in her tongue. “I’m staying there too.”

“Not going home?” she asks.

“Don’t want to Uber out that far at this time of night,” he says. “And Echo doesn’t like it when I come home drunk.”

“It’ll be too cramped,” she says.

“Murphy’s staying at Emori’s, I’m sleeping in his room,” he says.

“Bet he loves that,” Clarke snorts.

“Stay at Miller's,” he says. “I’ll call an Uber.”

She looks at him, feels an inch of not-nothingness grow inside her ribcage. She’s drunk and grieving. This is probably not a good idea. But – that feeling is enough to carry her through the doubt. For a night, for a while, she deserves to not care. She’s earned that much.

They get back to Miller’s apartment and he’s setting up the bed and boiling water for tea. He’s kind but brief, like he knows instinctively she’s not in the mood to keep making space around herself for other people’s sympathy, or maybe Bellamy is signaling it to him. Clarke is grateful, regardless, when Miller just gives her a final hug and returns upstairs.

Clarke uses the bathroom, scrubs her teeth with a toothpaste coated finger, like any of that matters, washes the dirt and grief off her skin, changes into the oversized shirt and sweatpants Miller’s given her.

“Those used to be mine,” Bellamy says when she comes downstairs. He’s brewed peppermint tea. It’ll taste funny after the toothpaste but Clarke just wants something warm. Her head is starting to feel stale and lifeless as she sobers up.

“Small world,” she says drily. He passes her the mug wordlessly. The kitchen feels pumped full of weird frenetic energy.

“I know you’re tired of this question, but – do you need anything?” he asks.

“No,” she says, and it’s not entirely honest, but. What she needs is something she can’t ask of him, won’t. They’ve spoken more tonight than they have in the past six months. So she won’t.

“I might go to bed, then,” he says. “Leave you to it.”

“Sure,” she says, clamps down on her own disappointment. What did she think would happen? “Night.”

“See you in the morning.”

He leaves. She lets her hands grip the mug until her skin singes. That not-nothingness is fading already. Why is she even here? Why didn’t she just go home?

The stairway creaks and Bellamy is in the kitchen again all of a sudden. She looks at him, confused.

“Uh,” he says. “I guess Murphy and Emori had a fight.”

She raises her eyebrows.

“He’s here, in his bed,” he clarifies. “Asleep.”

“Oh,” she says. “Oh.”

“I could – if I wake him up, maybe he’ll share,” Bellamy says.

“Yeah, that’s likely,” she says with a snort.

“Monty’s staying with Miller as well, so that’s not an option. Uh – I can sleep on the other couch? You can take the couch-bed, and I’ll - I don’t care, honestly. Unless that weirds you out.”

“No, it’s fine. That’s – fine.”

“If you need space, I get that.”

“No, it’s not a problem.”

They shuffle towards the living room, settle into their respective couches, swallow audibly in the thick of the awkwardness.

“Are you sure you’re-” Bellamy starts, as they both lie stock still and rigid, staring at the ceiling. He’s two feet away, maybe three, using his coat as a blanket and a couch cushion as a pillow. It would really make more sense to just share the couch bed. But she’s not going to cross that line.

“I promise I’m fine,” she says. “And I’m tired of saying that today, so. Stop.”

“Okay. Goodnight.”

They lie there, and then – nothing. It’s full blank nothing. Clarke can’t sleep. There’s no way she’s going to be able to sleep. Why didn’t she think about this? She has weed in her bag, she thinks, courtesy of Jasper, but she’s not about to go light one up right now with Bellamy right there. She’ll have to tell him she hasn’t been able to sleep since Jake’s death without weed, and he’ll get worried again.

“You okay?” Bellamy asks.

“I’m going to murder you if you say that one more time,” she says, terser than she intends it to come out.

“You’re just – moving a lot.”

“Sleep is shitty, at the moment. Not here, I just mean – you know. Everything feels cold and tight and… I don’t know.”

“Hang on,” he says. She hears shifting and when she looks up, he’s fiddling with the living room heater.

“Bellamy, I didn’t mean it literally,” she says. “It’s just… the feeling. You know. The nothing.”

He stops, looks at her. “Right. Sorry. Wish there were a quick fix for that.”

He moves to adjust her pillows, as if that’ll help, and then looks at her, arms braced on either side, accidentally intimate. The feeling rushes in.

She can’t lean into it. She can’t. He’ll reject her outright, and he’ll try to be _nice_ about it which will make it worse, probably tell Echo about the poor pathetic girl his sister used to be friends with and how she got drunk and tried to fuck him because her dad died and –

And then he’s kissing her. Jesus fuck. He’s actually. Kissing her. She opens and closes her eyes, doesn’t know if this is corporeal, real – did she actually fall asleep before? She must have.

He stops abruptly, moves back. “Fuck,” he says. “Fuck. I’m so sorry.”

He’s real. This is real. His pupils are dilated.

She sits up, pulls him back to her, and they’re in it again, twisting against each other. She pulls him over her, relishes in the weight of him, the feel of him against her. God, this is the feeling. This is what her body’s been aching for. Something else. Something burning and humming and alive.

He tugs away again.

“I’m definitely taking advantage,” he says.

“I’m letting you,” she says. “I need to not be nothing. I’m using you too. If it helps.”

His eyes look like they’re burning. “Clarke…”

“Your girlfriend is a better reason to walk away from this than I am,” she says, and _that_ , that is the line. He’s going to leave now. He might actually leave the house and walk home.

His gaze flicks between her mouth and her eyes. He surges forward.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey so as we are apparently continuing with this weird little brainworm for now, just wanted to give a warning (i've added the appropriate tags but also thought a written note would be good) - we're entering into some pretty fucked up stuff, if it wasn't already obvious, featuring very irresponsible drinking, morally outrageous coping mechanisms, and eating disorders. particularly with the last one, i just want to say: if you currently have or are in the early stages of recovering from any kind of eating disorders, i STRONGLY recommend you find another fic. when i was going through recovery, this kind of story would've been incredibly triggering for me, and whilst i'm trying to avoid specific details (lest this become an unintentional instruction manual, which i would just hate) and definitely not attempting to glorify or romanticise disordered eating, as it is the most fucked up thing i have ever in my life had to experience and i would not wish it on my worst enemy, it is going to be featured somewhat heavily in this story. i'm gonna do my best to not make this portrayal a harmful one, but i will be going for realism, and with realism comes triggering content, so best to avoid if that's even a mild concern for you. TAKE CARE OF YOURSELVES xx
> 
> anyway, here we go! i don't really know what i'm doing with this but i'm just going to plow on somewhat blindly!

They don’t talk about it.

In the morning, in Miller’s kitchen – Murphy’s kitchen too, technically, but you’d never know for all he uses it – she and Bellamy stand apart from each other. She stares at the space between his eyes when she has to look at him, allows Monty to fuss around them, toast bagels, make small talk. Miller watches him move through the kitchen fondly. Clarke watches him watch Monty and feels her teeth ache.

“Is Echo coming to pick you up?” Miller asks, looking at Bellamy.

Clarke feels his muscles tense up, even from across the room.

 _“Don’t do me any favors,”_ she’d said last night, his mouth between her breasts. _“I’m not looking for a pity fuck.”_

 _“What are you looking for, princess?”_ he asked, hands roaming, never resting anywhere for too long – waist, ribs, ass, neck, face.

 _“Just… something,”_ she said. _“I don’t know.”_

 _“I don’t pity you,”_ he said. _“I just want to fuck you.”_

_“Then stop talking about it and do it.”_

“Clarke?”

She snaps her head up. Monty’s looking at her.

“Do you want me to give you a lift home?” Monty asks.

“She can ride with us,” Bellamy says. “Echo won’t mind.”

It’s weird, feeling guilty. She didn’t really think she would. But there it is, burrowing into the center of her, cleaving open a home for itself.

“It’s okay,” she says. “My place is out of your way. Monty can drive me.”

“It’ll be more out of his way than ours,” Bellamy says. She looks at him in the eyes for the first time this morning. _Why are you doing this? Are you trying to punish me?_

“Okay,” Clarke says. “Fine.”

Monty and Miller are looking at them strangely, a bit of an edge in the way they eye Bellamy. She supposes they’re thinking he’s out of line talking to her that way, considering it was her dad’s funeral yesterday, wonders what they would do if they knew the truth. Does her grief pass extend to being forgiven for adultery? Or for being an accessory to it?

“You want a bagel before you go, Clarke?” Monty says.

Her stomach turns, already at that stage of hunger where the food her body craves is somehow also making her feel ill. It’s a feeling she knows well, a second home.

“I’m fine,” she says. “I don’t feel great right now.”

Monty looks at her, his eyes deepset and still laced with concern. She has to walk the line, avoid speculation from her friends, so –

“I’ll take one for the road, though,” she says. “I’ll probably get hungry on the way home.”

He brightens ever so slightly, wraps the bagel in tinfoil while they wait for Echo. Clarke sips her coffee, no cream. Bellamy and Miller talk about work and the game on Sunday, mostly just to fill the empty stretches of air, she suspects. She checks her phone, responds to texts from Raven and Octavia, ignores her mom because she’s feeling especially bitter this morning.

Eventually Bellamy’s phone buzzes – Echo, letting him know she’s here – and they say goodbye to Monty and Miller. Murphy’s still upstairs, sleeping off whatever fight he had with Echo, whatever bruises it left him with. She envies him greatly.

She and Bellamy are silent on the walk to the car. In the driver’s seat, Echo reacts – infinitesimally – to seeing Clarke, narrows her eyes slightly, and then appears to remember what yesterday was.

Clarke wonders why she didn’t come with Bellamy to the funeral, but then – it was a surprise that Bellamy himself even came. Octavia wasn’t a shock. Even though they hadn’t spoken face-to-face for a few months, the residue of their high school friendship, the drunk weekend parties, the nights turning into mornings spent on Clarke’s roof smoking weed and talking shit, that remained. Even three years after graduation, it remained. But Bellamy – that was a genuine shock, especially given the fact that he ended up having to pick up her pieces at the wake. In high school, they were – frenemies was probably the word for it. He liked that Octavia had a friend, a confidant. He hated that it was a prissy little rich girl who relished in pushing his buttons and egging Octavia on when she wanted to break his rules. They cared about each other, in the way you’re forced to when you grow up with somebody, but no more than was necessary. She didn’t even know he still lived in Boston. She should’ve guessed he wouldn’t be able to move away from Octavia.

“Mind dropping Clarke off on our way home?” Bellamy asks when they get to the car.

“Sure,” Echo says. He’s already getting in the front seat. She looks at Clarke. “Sorry ‘bout your dad. Sucks.”

“Thanks,” Clarke says, trying not to visibly wince at the words. She’s going to scream and then go live in the woods and never talk to another soul again. That’s her five-year-plan, she’s decided.

She gets in the backseat, leans her head back and rides the bumps of the road for the entirety of the uncomfortably long drive. It’s quiet except for when Bellamy gives the occasional direction to Echo. Clarke wonders how he knows her address. Octavia, she guesses, who got it off Raven.

When they pull up, Bellamy gets out too.

“I’m just gonna walk her to the door,” he says. He actually _grabs her elbow_ to steer her to the door.

Once they’re far enough away from the car, Clarke looks at him sharply, seething. “Don’t fucking talk about me like I’m not there.”

“Get over yourself,” he mutters. Clearly the charade of kindness from last night is dead and gone. “You act like a brat, you’re gonna be treated like one.”

“Right,” she scoffs. “Clearly someone’s sore about last night.”

“That’d be you, princess,” he says. “Walking a little stiff, are we?”

“You wish,” she says, even though she’s been feeling a low-but-sweet ache all morning that’s got nothing to do with last night’s whiskey.

They stop at the door.

“So,” Clarke says, crossing her arms. “You gonna tell her?”

He rolls his eyes. “What do you think?”

“Took you for a cheater, not a liar.”

His face hardens and he leans in, grabs her wrist. She’s hyperaware of Echo sitting in the car not thirty feet away. The thought of her seeing them makes Clarke’s face flush for precisely the wrong reasons, and all she can think is what a _fucking_ inopportune time to discover a new kink.

“Don’t fool yourself, sweetheart,” he says. The pet name makes her shiver. She wonders what he calls Echo. “You’re in this too. You fucked up too, dead dad pass or no.”

The words make her balk and suddenly, she’s struck with the realisation that she hasn’t even thought about that, about Jake, about the gnawing hole in her chest, for a whole thirty minutes. A record.

He’s still standing there, something like anger but slightly more foreign simmering under the surface.

“You should probably be getting back,” she says, swallowing the anger, the want, the relief of getting even the smallest reprieve from this hellish week. “Wouldn’t want to keep Echo waiting.”

Bellamy stares, in that way he does. He’s not fooled by her pretenses and they both know it. His index finger strokes her wrist and her breath hitches before she can help it. He smirks, retracts his hand, and leaves.

“Feel better,” he says, not turning around, and it’s a genuine effort to drag her eyes away, force herself inside.

Once she does, she wonders if it would’ve been better to just stay, staring after him, exposing her own despicable desire for him, rather than stand in this cold house and its dead air. It’s a coin toss, really. Either way she sinks. Either way she suffers. The game is rigged.

~ ~ ~

She doesn’t hear from Bellamy for two weeks, so she figures they’re done. It was a mistake, obviously, one he’s decided to forget. She should too. She could, if it wasn’t the only thing keeping her from plunging under again. She won’t let herself eat, be full, have joy, but she can indulge in this one thing, this one thing that helps. She can think about his hands, his tongue, his lips, his cock, she can pulse with the memory of his fingers in her hair, in her mouth, his teeth around her nipple. And she can’t touch herself, can’t bring herself to, but the thought of it is almost enough. Almost.

The human body can survive three weeks without food, a feat achieved by slowly cannibalizing itself, consuming from the inside out. Clarke wonders how long she can last on the memory of her quick, quiet fuck with her ex-best friend’s brother, wonders how long the thought will sustain her until she dips back under. Wonders if she’ll resurface or drown. Wonders if she even cares.

Raven invites her to a small gathering at her apartment, a mini-birthday celebration with no presents and double the booze, in accordance with the host’s wishes. Clarke does mean to find an excuse not to attend, but she’s tired and Raven is persistence personified, and that’s how she ends up at Raven’s doorstep, already slightly buzzed after the shots she had to take to get her out of the house. It doesn’t take much these days; even with the amount she’s drinking, she never has enough food to soak any of it up. Her life is a cycle of drunkenness and brutal hangovers, a swift, sharp dichotomy that satisfies her tendencies towards both self-indulgence and self-loathing.

Raven answers the door, her lips slicked with a glossy red shine and her eyes bright. Her eyes glance sharply over Clarke, and she frowns slightly. Clarke’s quickly shrinking figure is made more apparent in the tight black dress she’s wearing – she thought it would be more appropriate for a party, make it seem like she’s doing better, but she’s already realizing it was a mistake.

“Happy birthday,” Clarke says, holding up the tequila she brought as her contribution, trying to distract her friend.

“Hey, babe,” Raven says. “Glad you made it, even if you are apparently trying to _kill_ me. You know I can’t do that shit. Not after that fucking night in Spain.”

“That was my plan,” Clarke says, tries to inject some liveliness and humor into her tone. The alcohol helps a little. “Now it’s all mine.”

“Not if Bellamy can help it,” Raven says, stepping aside to let Clarke in. “Sick fucker loves that shit. You two are both screwed in the head.”

Clarke tries not to let her step falter as she enters. “Bellamy’s here?”

“Yeah,” Raven says. “Sorry, is that a problem?”

“No, course not,” Clarke says. “I just didn’t know you guys were close.”

“We’re not, really, but he and O are kind of a package deal. I’m sure you remember.”

Clarke grimaces, only because Raven’s behind her and can’t see it. “Yeah, I remember.”

Despite the small number of people, the party is already in full swing – the room is littered with bottles, full and empty, and a few people are already dancing to the beat. The deep bass of the 90’s pop hits blasting from Raven’s souped-up speakers has the room almost vibrating. Clarke can feel it in her chest and the sensation has her slightly woozy already. Shit. Maybe she’ll have a small handful of chips or something, to ease this lightheadedness and convince the others she still eats. Two birds, one stone, a hundred calories or less.

Monty, near the food table, spots her and waves her over. Raven has rejoined the dance floor where Jasper is flailing wildly and Harper and Octavia are actually dancing, so Clarke goes to joins him. As she walks over, she tilts her head ever so to scan the room, searching for Bellamy. She spots him in the second he sees her; their eyes meet and his face darkens. Echo is next to him, scrolling on her phone. They’re in the corner, looking like nothing so much as a pair of broody outcasts. Clarke rolls her eyes, turns away as she reaches Monty.

He hugs her, and they make small talk, mostly centered around him – Clarke probes him for information about his job, him and Miller, how his PhD is going, tries to distract herself from the gaze she feels burning holes in the thin fabric of this stupid decision of a dress. A few songs in, Raven rejoins them, and Clarke chooses that moment to grab a handful of pretzels. Her brain screams even as her mouth waters. She eats them, careful to not go too slow or too fast, watches Raven relax slightly. Clarke knows she’s not out of the woods yet, not completely, but this is a step. And she feels slightly better, even if the feeling of something in her stomach makes her gag a little.

 _Push It_ comes on right around Clarke’s fourth drink of the night, and when Raven tugs her onto the dance floor, because _this is our fucking_ song _, babe_ , she’s almost excited. She throws her head back, pushes her hips against Raven, sliding against her as is their style when they’re drunk-dancing. Raven’s holding Clarke’s hand above her head, their bodies tucked together, and it’s at that moment that Clarke chances a look over at the corner where Bellamy and Echo still stand. His jaw is so clenched she can see the muscles popping from across the room, his gaze determinedly fixed on some indistinguishable point in the distance. Clarke can’t resist a smirk – either she’s turning him on, pissing him off, or some delightful combination of both, and regardless, she’s enjoying it.

She dances for another two songs, then begs off when she starts feeling woozy again, feigning dehydration. She snags the bottle of tequila she brought – still untouched – and heads into the kitchen.

It’s unpleasantly bright, but slightly cooler with a breeze coming through the open window, a nice change from the hot, sticky air of Raven’s living room. Clarke grabs herself a glass and pours some water, guzzles it down in seconds – so maybe she wasn’t totally lying about needing some non-alcoholic fluids.

She doesn’t register the person behind her until she’s pouring another glass, letting it fill up to the top and spill over, and a hand reaches out and twists the tap off.

All of a sudden she’s aware of the broad, warm body pressed up behind her, and of course, she knows it’s him.

“I wasn’t finished with that,” she says.

“I’d say you’re about done,” his voice says, low, growly. She shivers. Fuck, she hates his stupid fucking voice.

She turns to face him, and brings the glass to her lips, careful not to spill the water. He watches her, eyes dark. She drains the glass, slowly, letting the coolness seep down into her stomach. She loves that feeling. He watches her throat move, braces his arms on the counter, boxing her in.

“You need something?” she says once she’s finished.

“Mm,” he says, non-committal. “The tequila.”

Clarke glances to her side – there’s a cutting board with shot glasses, lemon slices, and a salt shaker, probably from before she arrived. Some have been sucked dry, but there are two or three wedges left untouched. She grabs the tequila bottle, unscrews the cap, and gives it to him.

“Be my guest,” she says.

Slowly, smoothly, without freeing her from the press of his body against hers, he grabs the bottle, pours two shots with one hand whilst the other grips the counter beside her. She watches his knuckles turn white.

He releases the other hand, picks up both the shots and moves to leave, but she curls a leg around his, stops him. Impressively, he doesn’t spill a drop.

“You’ve gotta do it properly,” she says. “You’ll make the tequila gods angry.”

He raises one eyebrow, and the movement makes her think of Octavia, all of a sudden – yet another reason not to get into this shit again, but Clarke can’t care, not when she feels like this, so full, so rushing with energy and desire.

She reaches for a lemon wedge, brings it to her mouth and holds it between her lips. Bellamy’s pupils dilate further, the white of his eyes almost completely engulfed in darkness.

“Traditionally, it’s supposed to be a lime, so I think the tequila gods are pissed either way,” he says, even as he puts down the shots and reaches for the salt shaker. He hesitates for one long second before leaning in, brushing her hair aside and licking a wet stripe across the top of her breasts, which strain against the confines of the smallest bra she has. She shudders, but keeps her gaze on him as he sprinkles the salt, collects one of the shots. He grips her waist with his free hand and then leans in, swipes his tongue against that same spot, sucks hard enough that it makes a pop when he pulls back to take the shot, and then the free hand is in her hair and he’s sucking at the lime, not pulling it from her mouth but leaving it so the flavor seeps in as his tongue flicks into her mouth and against her teeth. He sucks it out and spits it into the sink behind her, hand still tugging at her hair just sharp enough to prompt a flood of wetness in her underwear.

He looks at her, cheeks flushing red against the constellation of freckles on his face, and shifts his knee so it presses between her legs, just enough to make her chest tighten.

“Is this what you want,” he says, bringing his mouth to her ear. It’s not a question – he can feel how much she wants this. She moans, barely conscious enough to care that anyone could walk in right now, _Echo_ could walk in right now. His teeth tug at her earlobe and she gasps.

“Don’t tease,” she begs. He pauses, tightens against her so that his leg is pressing sharply, almost _painfully_ into her crotch, and then releases, steps back.

“Okay,” he says simply, and then he grabs the second shot and walks out.

Clarke almost collapses against the counter, barely able to hold herself up, watches him leave helplessly.

Cool air hits the patch of wet skin on her breasts and she shuts her eyes against the feeling. God, she is fucked.


End file.
